Suzanne Werder

Suzanne Werder was born in Edinboro, Pennsylvania to two artists. After rebelling against them and herself by running from art and (unsuccessfully) attempting to be a normie, she got a degree in Elementary Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. After teaching at many interesting places including an Islamic Elementary school and an Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva, she is now embracing art and herself.

She is a member of The Pittsburgh Group, Pittsburgh Society of Artists, Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors, Group A, and Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. She has received grants from Soup N'at, and Lively Pittsburgh, as well as three grants from the Pittsburgh Awesome Foundation. In addition to gracing the cover of the Pittsburgh City Paper, and the pages of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, her multidisciplinary work has been exhibited/performed in numerous galleries including Silver Apple Gallery, Eastside Gallery, VMRC, Panza Gallery, Spinning Plate Gallery, The Miller IGA, Artsmiths of Pittsburgh, Artist Image Resource, the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination, the Brew House Association, Percolate, Local 412, the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and Meadville Council on the Arts.

Her couture has been shown at Ecolution Fashion Show at the Pittsburgh Fairmont Hotel, the Haute Ohio Fashion Alliance, as well as the Pittsburgh Vegan Festival where her recycled belly dancing costumes have won first place twice. She was the team leader for the winning team during the 2024 Art Olympics. 

She is the creator of the Busnegie Museum of Art, transforming the bus shelters in front of the Carnegie Museum of Art into a free museum showcasing the work of local artists. As the Busnegie founder, she collaborated with the Carnegie Museum of Art to plan a party for the opening of the Carnegie International. On three trips from 2014 to 2016, she taught teachers in Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia (including refugees from South Sudan) how to create multi-sensory hands-on teaching materials using natural items and garbage.

She has provided art education for Holy Family Institute, Longmore Academy, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Propel Charter School, the Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art, the McMurray Art League among other places. She has been a teaching artist in residence with ProjectArt, an adjunct professor at Duquesne University, a face painter, and The Dream Lab Maker Space Coordinator with the Pittsburgh Project.

Her multidisciplinary art seeks to elevate the profile of marginalized materials, places, and people in order to reveal the miraculous within the mundane, the extraordinary within the ordinary.